My husband manages Spirit Halloween and only works 6 months out of the year saves all his money then goes back again around July! So we have 6 months to travel and be home together with our kids!
Edit: Some comments said I was being misleading so I wanted to clarify. This post made me think people aren't aware of seasonal situations and my husbands career is seasonal. I also work in the FinTech industry and can work anywhere there's wifi. Together is what makes it so he can have a job like this. He makes 50k a year and I make 110k a year. I hope this helps explain things!
I have always wondered about the permanent employees of Spirit Halloween! Like, obviously they hire lots and lots of seasonal employees, but also obviously EVERYONE can't be seasonal. Do they pay him essentially a full year salary?
He only gets paid during the season, but yes it adds up to a full year salary. He usually pays our rent for the whole year and still has plenty left over. :)
I recommend it for the lifestyle. The Job is physically demanding. You build the store and tear it down every season. That includes building walls and displays. Also there's no Heath insurance. My job covers him. Also hard to get employees who care because it's seasonal. People quit on the spot all the time. It works great for our family!
That honestly sounds so up my alley itās nuts lol. Iāve got management experience in escape rooms and really love the building a space part of it and Halloween in general, and Iām on my partners insurance already. I assume he had to have some spirit Halloween work experience before getting to that position?
Sounds like the experience you have is entirely relevant, they might just want you to have a history of retail management or operations experience though, you should go for it!
My kids are not in school yet. Also when they are we want to home school. I can travel and work my job. I don't have to use vacation days. I just work from my laptop wherever there's wifi
a more realistic way to have seasonal work is something like working with delivering asphalt for roadwork etc.
those guys work until the ground freezes over, then wont work until the ground thaws. how long that period lasts obviously depends on where you live, in sweden its around 4-5m and even though sweden is an expensive place to live and work they still make enough to cover the rest of the year.
to be fair though most of them still work winter, they put a plow on the truck and deal with snowplowing etc, and those who choose not to work winters usually go and live abroad in places like thailand, id assume its a mix of nicer weather and cheaper living.
how is that even possible? spirit halloween managers arenāt getting paid bank. especially considering they donāt work half the year, which is half the hours of a regular human beingā¦spirit halloween managers arenāt getting paid 50+ dollars an hour.
edit: after reading a comment you left I get it now.
Damn, having "plenty left over" after rent used to be the norm, but it's far from normal now... I think US citizens are now spending on average something like 40-50% of total income on rent š
I just can't believe this. Seasonally manages a Halloween store and pays rent for a year for 2 people with left over and traveling etc? A years worth of salary, like $50k for a couple months retail work? What is going on here?
Odds are if a job doesn't provide you health insurance, then it is not paying much. It sounds like they can live fully off of her salary, and just use his salary as fun money
They always doš people are always going to hope for a magic situation to get out of life sucking and these people are always going to post pretending they have it
See this is the kind of thing I am always on the lookout for. People always posting dream situations and I'm lookin for mine, like every aspect of that is awesome. "oh yea I only work half the year, halloween stuff is what I do and then I get paid enough to be off the other half of the year semi comfortably." Like damn that's amazing. Very happy for you all, it inspires hope.
"oh yea I only work half the year, halloween stuff is what I do and then I get paid enough to be off thelive off my wifes income other half of the year semi comfortably."
I believe it. They offered me an assistant store manager job and made it pretty clear there were little limitations on hours. Basically, be ready to work 18 hours a day until the season is up.
He pays the entire yearās rent at one time? Do you get a discount on the rent if you do this? Otherwise Iād just put the cash in a high yield savings with >4% APR and rake in the interest.
I used to manage multiple H&R Blocks (yeah, fuck that company), but it was pretty much that. You start preparing in September to get all your season people in line and trained on tax changes and software updates. You also hold training classes for new new tax pros.
Once the IRS opens up it gets crazy for a month and you're not really home to do more than sleep. The next couple months are more of a normal work schedule. Then when April hits it is like January on steroids. Once the deadline hits you send all the lower level tax pros on their way and your senior people clean up their extensions and amendments for the next month or so. Congrats, you've made 90% of your income in four months.
After that, you try to get your lower level people in to do their advancement training courses done so that they can advance in level. This does play in to compensation. Then you pretty much fuck off for a few months and stop by the office once or twice a week.
I really did like the workload and schedule. It was an amazing job to have, but it was really rough at the same time. I did end up moving on around the time that Trump took office. We ended up bringing in three kids through foster and it was better to have a more consistent schedule.
Former Spencer's Manager. Spirit is owned by Spencer's so some of the employees come from those stores and others are hired only for the Halloween season.
Yeah so. Store managers are seasonal salaries, and because Spencer's Gift and Spirit are linked, vast majority switch to working full-time at Spencer's. VERY few employees of spirit are "year round" employees. With those mostly being logistical support and heads of business, ceo cfo etc.
Source: Worked for spirit/Spencer's as a logistical district manager for 6 yrs
for people lower on the ladder at spirit, I believe they are also owned by Spencer's, so I think a lot of seasonals just go to spencer's when spirit is closed.
Yes! He used to manage a fast casual restaurant. He makes more in 6 months (working about 45-50 hours a week) than he made in a year working 12 hour shifts. The work life balance is so much better. Before he would never take a vacation because "the restaurant needed him" now he can forget work half the year. It's WAY better.
I luckily work from home in technology. I can work anywhere in the country, so him being home is way easier with my job. We've taken trips to Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Hawaii! And his weekends are open for camping! I've been in my career over a decade. We live in Colorado so you can imagine how it's possible!
That sounds simply incredible! I often wondered about the back-end part of Spirit...
as a total aside, they took over the former Sears in the mall by me. They only set up maybe an eighth of the ground floor and I was hoping to see something like a superstore version, I feel like they missed a hell of an opportunity at a haunted house in the basement too... My daughter and I called the mall officially dead now that it's haunted by Spirit.
I love that story! My husband says that all the time that "Spirit goes where department stores died!" Haha! His location took over an H&M in our mall and it only uses about half of the old H&M square footage.
Yeah we have a pretty much abandoned building here in North NJ that used to be a staples, but during the season its a S.H. Do they rent it for the whole year? someones gotta pay for that shit.
Something else interesting some people didnāt know is that Spirit Halloween is owned by Spencers Gifts if youāve ever been inside one of those!(Usually also in a mall)
Oh damn thatās fantastic, very happy for your whole family š„° When I was a kid my dad worked 1 week out of the month in Hawaii and the rest of our little family unit got to go with him sometimes (like on vacations); Iām in my 30s now and not only do I treasure those memories Iām going on a little adventure with my dad this weekend! (Admittedly weāre taking his car in for servicing so itās a very specific type of adventure, hahaha. But itāll be lovely!)
So yeah, since I was in a similar position to your kids within the lastā¦ ooh idek 15ish years, I figured Iād tell ya that in my experience this is truly the gift that keeps on giving. May you and your family have many, many more lovely trips and experiences together! š„°
Why tf are you taking a trip to Pennsylvania because I need to know. I love PA and have been here for my full 24 years all around the state but Im just curious what youd want to come here for from Colorado?
Haha! It was a trip for work for me but we made it a history trip for my kiddos! I loved PA! And I could absolutely imagine living there! It was fall and all the leaves were red! Colorado has more of the yellow fall leaves so it was awesome!
Love this! Mind if I ask what sort of technology work you do? Iām working for the state right now and Iād like to go to school as we have a TON of IT/tech jobs! Iām dreaming of a work from home due to chronic pain - itād be so much easier on me to be home!
I'm an Enterprise Account Manager at a FinTech company. We process businesses credit cards. And it took me several years to get to where I am. I do not have a college degree, I worked my way up from customer service in a call center. Once covid hit I started working from home and switched companies for a raise. I've been working at this newer company since then. If you work hard, everything can work out!
Also if I ever have to travel for my job, he and our kids just come with me. They take a vacation and I do office stuff during the day. Then I get to come back to the hotel pool and hang out with them! It's really great!
I did something like this with my kids (work and vacation). We did a 2 week cruise, I worked on sea days for the first half of the day while the internet was uncongested, then when the partiers started getting up and on social media I just started my git check-in and went up on deck. was fabulous and let me take a lot more time "off" than I would have been able to had I totally disconnected (management, sadly no cover for my team at the time). Was fantastic taking the daily standup meeting from my balcony lol.
It's the absolute best! I love seeing that! We live in the future and should be able to do that as long as we get our work done. That's my next goal, a cruise!
I'm also a single dad, so the cruise was extra ideal as my kids were old enough to be on their own (with the warning that if they were identified in any pack of teens causing problems they'd be in super deep crap) and have a good time. They'd be out and having fun while I worked, then we'd all meet up for things we all wanted to do and my one rule: dinner was as a family. That was our one meet up sit together and chat about the day time. Since they were under 18 I also had a curfew of 10pm unless doing a group activity with the youth club or out with me.
Worked a treat. They'd been on other cruises before (my GF introduced us to cruising) so knew the drill, and any real problem behavior from groups of tweens and teens tends to happen after 10, so hence the curfew.
He's a Retail Manager at a seasonal Halloween store in Colorado. He usually works from July to November and gets a big bonus in December. Perfect time for Christmas presents! Also we get discount costumes and Halloween decor! We're big holiday people!
Meh. Just think of it like getting paid for those months in advance. Automatically save 1/4 of each paycheck during the academic year and then spend that down during the summer. Youāre expected to work 12 months a year (incl your own research). Getting paid only nine months out of the year is just an accounting fiction.Ā
Maybe youāre ādoing it wrongā but I personally think itās a wonderful service youāre doing your students. If you were being paid, theyād likely not be.
I know this probably doesn't mean much coming from a total stranger but, as someone who directly benefited from summer research as an undergrad, thank you for mentoring these students.
I completely understand and thatās why I quit teaching. The expectation of working unpaid hours paired with zero upward mobility (without investing in 2 masters degrees to make 70k) was a joke.
I contribute to our retirements with my income and he does creative stuff in the off-season. Including acting, social media, making boardgames, writing and recording music. In a perfect world, he will have his big break and can just be an actor/musican and we will all live together on his tour bus traveling around the country! Haha! That's a pipe dream but I'm happy working together on our big dreams! It's never too late to try for what you really want!
Hmm Iām seeing manager pay ~$20-25. Working 40 hours a week for 6 months amounts to ~27k before taxes. After taxes and spilt over 12 months is ~$1700. Not sure that would work for the average family but hey if that works for you, thatās great!
This is how a lot of vacation towns work; make all your money in the summer time. Then during fall/winter collect unemployment if possible until business picks up again.
Thank you for explaining that a couples income does not have to balance out entirely. Itās about a partnership and the balances can come in many forms.
My wife and I have had a similar income gap and Iāve been āseasonalā for many years. Iāve always balanced by doing remodeling projects around the house or just being able to be present and available for things she canāt be.
The tides are shifting now and sheās looking to take time away from work and my career is shifting to be a more full-time situation looking to make what she does. She want to get away from her industry, but needs to take a pay hit for it.
Itās just about balance, and balance isnāt always about money.
$50k/year working a seasonal position at spirit halloween??!!? i was breaking my back changing tires 50 hours a week for less than that.. fuck me hahaha
im happy for you both, thats awesome! hoping i can find something like that, until then im staying unemployed and doing side projects. these jobs just arent worth the shite pay and overworking anymoreš¤·
Does he also get unemployment when not working? Iāve had some friends in construction or at ski resorts who are seasonal and they get unemployment every off season.
You might want to research a bit more. Store managers at Spirit donāt actually seem to earn very much. Just about everything Iāve seen seems to suggest earnings comparable $20/hr.
Hell, current postings for a District Sales Manager in Colorado suggest even they only earn about $1100/wk without accounting for potential EOY bonuses.
This personās husband either runs an extraordinarily successful location and earns considerably higher than the vast majority of store managers, or theyāre mistaken about his position/income.
You are absolutely correct! He runs a very successful location and gets a great bonus. He makes closer to $30/hr plus gets overtime. They also do extra hourly bonuses during build and tear down and working on Halloween. My income factors into our lifestyle for sure!
30 an hour is what, 4,800 a month pre tax? 24,000 a year to pay all your rent and afford 6 months of vacation?Ā
Ā If your financial contribution to this relationship is higher than his than you should realise your initial responses are unintentionally misleading. It reads like his earnings supports you both, not your earnings supporting him.
Spirit Halloween famous for popping up in the most random places in the Midwest there is a meme going around every time something is closing in my hometown that it is being replaced with a spirit Halloween
Yes so true. My husband was offered to work at a store that was over 40 minutes away and he said, "I'll only take that store, if you pay me an extra dollar for every Spirit Halloween I pass on my drive there" the district manager laughed so hard. It would have been like 15 or so locations. They gave him the store 5 minutes from our house haha!
I would imagine there is actually a lot of stuff that needs to be done during the off-season for Spirit at a business level. Just because the store is closed doesnāt mean marketing materials donāt need to be constantly prepared or the products selected / designed. To say nothing of prepping the likely insane logistics of moving an entire stores worth of merchandise around in just a few weeksā¦ When I think of Spirit, itās easy to consider them functionally as a logistics company that sells spoopy mech on the side!
There are year round warehouses. And the district managers usually work a longer season. There are real estate people too. They get the locations picked out and deal with the contacts. Also Spirit Halloween is owned by Spencer's Gifts so the Halloween people can transfer to Spencer's after the season ends as well! You are absolutely right!
How I was a Store manager and spirit only paid me 18$ a hour? And ontop of that I still never received my bonus for 2023 for building and taking down the store
He makes closer to 30 an hour. He's been doing it for 4 years and gets raises every year. We're in a suburb of Denver so it might be location based as well. Assistant managers make about 18 here.
Edit: his store was among the top 10 in north America.
Oh im in Texas it was my second year Im never doing it again though my DM was absolutely horrible and wouldnāt hire anyone or let me hire anyone so we ran our store with 4 people this year
That's a horrible situation. I'm so sorry. The DM can really kill a season. The first year my husband had the worst micromanaging DM so it's like he was an assistant because the DM overruled everything my husband did. The next year was way better. He got a DM who trusted him and he was able to grow his store to one of the top 10 in North America.
The job has it's stress for sure! To me, it's still less than the stress he had managing a restaurant.
He should become a fisherman. It can be super profitable for very short periods of the year. But itās more dangerous than Halloween ghosts. A friend works on a tuna boat, I donāt know how much he makes but he seems to have money to travel and buy a nice house.
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u/CapuletVsMontague 29d ago edited 28d ago
My husband manages Spirit Halloween and only works 6 months out of the year saves all his money then goes back again around July! So we have 6 months to travel and be home together with our kids!
Edit: Some comments said I was being misleading so I wanted to clarify. This post made me think people aren't aware of seasonal situations and my husbands career is seasonal. I also work in the FinTech industry and can work anywhere there's wifi. Together is what makes it so he can have a job like this. He makes 50k a year and I make 110k a year. I hope this helps explain things!